


Symmetry

by ApollonDeuxMille



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-13 21:43:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7138436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ApollonDeuxMille/pseuds/ApollonDeuxMille
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘I’m not playing games with you, Jim.’ Oswald’s tongue writhes behind his teeth, glistening as he teases it across his lower lip. Jim wonders if he knows he does that, and if he could even begin to imagine the unsafe thoughts that leer out of the gloom when he does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Symmetry

**Author's Note:**

> A short response to a prompt to "write a story that takes place in a library." This is also posted on my Tumblr blog @delicatelyserved.

Jim doesn’t know if Oswald has been in the library the entire time and he can’t decide if he thinks Oswald is connected to the dead body downstairs. He gazes absently at the spines of the many books looming all around them, uninviting and solemn. Ancient Architecture and Sculpture. Certainly not his cup of tea, but this is where he’s been summoned. The unprejudiced company of books is what Oswald clearly feels drawn to. Jim could have surmised that of his own accord before they had ever started making their indulgent mess together.

‘I’m not playing games with you, Jim.’ Oswald’s tongue writhes behind his teeth, glistening as he teases it across his lower lip. Jim wonders if he knows he does that, and if he could even begin to imagine the unsafe thoughts that leer out of the gloom when he does.

'I didn’t say you were.'

'Then why do you look so vexed?’ It’s barely an earnest question, it teases too much. Jim can can almost smell a change in the space between them. Jim doesn’t have an answer, not one made of words at least, so he relies on what he knows best and pins Oswald against the bookcase. They’re frighteningly close to each other, sharing the air as one breathes out and the other breathes in. This has been a long time coming.

'I’m supposed to be calling in a murder, Oswald.’ Jim’s lips are too close to Oswald’s face, where heavily lidded eyes fixate all over his neck, his pitiful four-in-hand, his chest as it heaves under his creased shirt.

'I’m not stopping you.’

Jim scoffs. 'Yes you are.’

The moment their mouths yield to one another is the moment they are totally grounded. The first time they kissed was an explosion, weakening them as fears and wishes and denial and resentment rushed to discharge from their personal storm clouds. This morning, in gratifying contrast, they surrender to a changeless, galloping beat. They are steady and reined in. This time they don’t even bite.

When they eventually part for breath they pause for a moment, licking their lips as they are transported by the tickling whisper of their kiss. They are both briefly hesitant to look at each other, though their noses are almost touching. They sigh in unison and trigger bashful, lingering smiles. Until Jim ruins it perfectly.

'Did you kill that man downstairs?’

Oswald, dreamily brushing his thumbs across Jim’s shoulders, pushes backwards into the shelf behind him. 'When have I ever picked up the phone to call you right after I’ve killed someone?'

Jim blinks, feeling the glass floor he’s just stepped on begin to crack. 'Well, Occam’s Razor, Oswald.’

Oswald huffs and turns his head away, bitterly furious that not thirty seconds ago he’d been feeling such pleasure, swaddled in a womb of his most vulnerable fantasies, and then forced out into a place he hated to be. Where Jim looked down on him as if he was a hideous encumbrance, because for a painfully long time, that was the reality they shared.

'Why do you always expect the worst of me?’

There have been many troublesome lessons for Jim to learn since his false hostility towards Oswald began to dissolve, and here he sees a new one rear up. It’s delicate, so he begins gently.

'I don’t expect the worst,’ he says, leaning down to firmly fix his words onto the softness of Oswald’s pale jawline with his lips. 'I just know exactly what you’re capable of.’ Jim brushes his warm, dry mouth along Oswald’s neck, kissing behind his ear until he manages to summon tender gasps. It’s not hard to manipulate Oswald, and Jim wishes he’d given way to this before, finding it far easier to enjoy than all the snarling and threatening he’d wasted so much time on. Summoning the desire to do this becomes more natural with each day they spend within eyesight of each other.

'Jim, I didn’t-’

Oswald’s breathy protest is swallowed as Jim licks the inside of his bottom lip. Their tongues sensuously whorl together once again, and they both ponder on the realisation that they seem better suited to this lazy pace, endlessly more preferable than all the exhausting tantrums, the giving and taking in hopelessly disparate quantities.

'No one knows I came here except you,’ Jim murmurs through their increasingly boggling kiss. Oswald had called at around five thirty that morning from an unknown number.

_'Jim, I’m at the Gotham City Public Library. I’ve found a dead body.’_

He knows he didn’t come because it was a duty to a murder victim and he knows he’s not still here because he’s got a suspect he should arrest. There was only one reason that made him roll out of bed and leap into the streets twelve minutes later, haphazardly dressed and still bleary-eyed, and it was the same reason Oswald, self-indulgent phantom of the library since his awkward teen years, had bothered to call Jim in, rather than slip away from the unfortunate discovery and leave it be. An opportunity to dote in solitude, somewhere and sometime that no one would bother to think true if a rumour managed to leak.

'So no one will know if you leave except me,’ Oswald stutters. They tilt their faces to kiss at each others necks, as if they’ve rehearsed.

_'Exactly.’_


End file.
